An embodiment of the invention relates to a container collecting device and a urinalysis apparatus in which the container collecting device is used.
Usually, in a urinalysis, tapered cylindrical paper containers are used. The end portion on the small-diameter side of each paper container is closed. After urine sampling, the paper containers are collected and discarded. In recent years, a collecting device has been developed which automatically collects the paper containers (Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2010-155713).
This collecting device has a cylindrical guide having an inner diameter larger than the largest diameter of the paper containers. The cylindrical guide is extended in a perpendicular direction and the paper container is inserted into the cylinder from an upper end of the guide. The paper container is inserted into the cylindrical guide from the small-diameter side of the container to be stacked in the vicinity of a lower end of the cylindrical guide.
When the paper container is inserted into the cylindrical guide and the paper container is tilted or wet, the paper container sometimes gets hung up and does not stack properly. In this case, only a number of the paper containers smaller than a pre-determined number can be received, with the result that this cylindrical guide, i.e., the guide cylinder, quickly becomes full. Every time the guide cylinder becomes full, it is necessary to remove the paper containers from the collecting device. Therefore, the number of times to remove the paper containers from the guide cylinder increases.